ing and distilling the knowledge they required. These findings highlight the complex nature of policy makers’ behaviour and information gathering, which is only possible with this type of approach.
Following a very similar process, Mutshewa (2010) interviewed forty-four environ-mental planners in Botswana about their use of information. The findings suggested that the planner’s perceptions of their own competence, resistance of stakeholders, and the perception of the usefulness of the information, affected their behaviour and use of information. The type of policy makersMutshewa(2010) interviewed are the most similar here to those that the SWAP model is aimed at. As such the findings are particularly relevant to the aims of this part of the thesis. The findings are strik-ingly honest, in that participants admitted to worrying about their own competence with certain information and tools, and acknowledged that other stakeholders can be resistant. These kinds of findings are significant as they give an extra depth to our understanding of how policy makers are interacting with information, and by proxy, with tools and models.
2.6 Conclusion
Through the use of existing literature this chapter has provided context to and begun to address the question of how policy makers use, understand and evaluate models.
We have seen, despite the literature on research utilisation and the science-policy in-terface, that there is little work that specifically focuses on models and modelling. For other areas of research concerned directly with modelling such as those for DSS and integrated assessment models there is little work that empirically considers the use of these methods by practitioners, and authors do not typically engage with the research utilisation and science-policy literature streams.
This highlights a gap in the literature between that which deals directly with mod-els, but does not consider their use in a reflexive and pragmatic manner, or does not include policy makers’ voices, and that which considers the use of research in the real-world, but not specifically models. The question of how environmental policy makers use, understand and evaluate models falls in this gap.
Thus it is the focus on modelling, with an awareness of the research utilisation and
2.6. Conclusion 29
science-policy literatures, and an empirical design including policy makers’ voices, which allows the interviews presented in the next chapter to begin to directly address the question of how environmental policy makers use, understand, and evaluate mod-els.
Chapter 3
Interviews with Environmental Policy Practitioners
This chapter directly addresses the question of how environmental policy practition-ers use, undpractition-erstand, and evaluate models in their work. A loose definition of practi-tioners is used here to denote any individual self-identifying as working on environ-mental policy; this means individuals can come from any type of organisation.
Environmental issues are complex (J¨ager,1998;Matthies et al.,2007;Poch et al.,2004) and policy makers are required to consider the various potential impacts of policies (Ayoub et al.,2009;Boulanger and Br´echet,2005). To address this, governments often look for model-based evidence to make problems more tractable and back up their decisions (Clark and Holmes, 2010). Thus, it is suggested the use of models allows government, and other institutions, to claim rigour in their decision-making, the use of evidence, and even to delegate decision-making. In light of this, it is important to improve our understanding of the real role and value of models to policy makers. To do this, it is necessary to engage with policy making practitioners in a formal research sense, to interview and observe them. This is an important part of the more general effort to improve the use of modelling in policy, recognised by government efforts to improve their use of modelling and science (e.g.,HM Government Office for Science, 2010;National Research Council,2007).
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3.1. Aims 31
At this point it is wise to outline our working definition of a model.National Research Council(2007, p. 18) provide a broad and inclusive definition that is used throughout this study:
“a simplification of reality that is constructed to gain insights into select attributes of a particular physical, biological, economic or social system”.
This is a broad definition, alternatives tend to be more narrow, focussing on more formal and complicated forms of modelling that require academic training or study.
A broad definition is used to be inclusive, and allow the practitioners interviewed to have freedom in what they consider a model and choose to discuss.
3.1 Aims
The aim of the interviews was to gain a qualitative understanding of the opinions and perceptions of individuals working on environmental policy on the use and role of models in their work. To do this, nineteen semi-structured interviews with practi-tioners working on environmental policy were carried out. The perceptions are those of individuals working in environmental policy, in many types of organisation, not just government. This is important as it is not just government that has an input into environmental policy; NGOs, research institutions, and consultancies, to name a few, also have important roles.
The key research questions to be addressed were:
1. How do practitioners perceive the types and roles of models in their work?
2. How do practitioners perceive the policy process?
3. How do practitioners evaluate models they use in their work?
4. How do practitioners perceive the use of models more generally in environ-mental policy?
This constitutes an attempt to contribute to the goal of improving the use of modelling in policy. The literature has historically focussed on more conceptual and theoretical